Senator Dean Heller from Nevada suggested in a speech he made last week that Justice Anthony Kennedy may be retiring this summer.
“Kennedy is going to retire around sometime early summer,” Heller said in the speech. “Which I’m hoping will get our base a little motivated because right now they’re not very motivated. But I think a new Supreme Court justice will get them motivated.”
If that does indeed happen, President Trump will get to pick a new Supreme Court justice and you can bet he’s going to be met with quite a bit of resistance.
Liberal Twitter is already reacting.
Let Me Make This Clear:
The most important thing we can do is keep the Senate for when Justice Kennedy retires.
If we control the Senate, we control the Supreme Court. #JusticeKennedy
— #ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) March 9, 2018
Senator Dean Heller says that Justice Kennedy will retire this summer, leaving a seat open in the Supreme court for Trump to fill.
In other words, we need to flip the House and Senate so that we can prevent Trump from putting @JudgeJeanine in the Supreme Court!#BlueWave
— Ed Krassenstein (@EdKrassen) March 9, 2018
While Senator Heller may be correct about Justice Kennedy retiring this Summer, I have my doubts that he has any more information than anyone else does.
It's likely a move to fire up the GOP base. Instead, let's make sure it further Fires up the Democrats to VOTE IN NOVEMBER!!
— Brian Krassenstein (@krassenstein) March 9, 2018
Dean Heller doesn’t know if Justice Kennedy is retiring or not.
Heller just knows he’s going to lose his re-election bid due to the impending blue wave.
He’s trying to motivate the same religious zealots who held their nose and voted Trump to get Gorsuch.
— Adam Best (@adamcbest) March 9, 2018
Kennedy was appointed to the Supreme Court in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan. Many times he has been a swing vote for the court, so while filling his seat wouldn’t entirely change the balance, it definitely could have an impact depending on who President Trump would pick to replace him.
Of course this is all speculation at this point but it’s likely that Trump will get to replace someone at some point in the next few years. Clarence Thomas is 69, Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 84, and Stephen Breyer is 78.
-K